PA announces 'prisoner intifada'

Terrorist prisoners to launch mass hunger strike in an attempt to start a broader scale intifada.

Dalit Halevi, 10/04/17 01:07

Prison (illustration)

Reuters

Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Association, and Qadura Fares, chairman of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, on Sunday called for "broad popular activity" and support for an upcoming hunger strike by terrorists being held in Israeli prisons, which will begin on April 17.

Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah and quoted by the Safa news agency, Qaraqe said that the leadership of the prisoners' movement decided to support the mass hunger strike, which will be the largest one ever.

He added that the hunger strike would symbolize the spirit of "national unity and the struggle to fulfill prisoners' demands".

Fares noted that the hunger strike would be an important test, since the prisoners' movement has not launched such a hunger strike for years.

He called for the expansion of the "prisoners' intifada" in order to include the "Palestinian people" wherever they are.

Jailed terrorists have often used hunger strikes as a pressure tactic aimed at forcing Israel to improve the conditions of their imprisonment or release them out of fear for their lives. Israel has several times in the past caved to the pressure and released some hunger strikers.

Some 1,550 Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israel ended a hunger strike in May 2012, in exchange for a package of measures which would allow visits from relatives in Gaza and the transfer of detainees out of solitary confinement.